A Top's Eye VIew.
I hope this will be fun, funny, complicated, opinionated and occasionally irritating. Say what you will. Agree, disagree, complain, rant, rave. It's fine. If I say something that offends you, go somewhere else. If you agree with me or any of my musings, please share this with your lifestyle compatriots.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Those were the words spoken mid-scene by Beth when we played last night at the Lair to gasps from the six or seven people sitting around us and watching. But before I go into that, let me back up and describe how we ended up at that rather abrupt and stunning comment.

Beth and I were supposed to play a few weeks ago. She lives in the Bay Area up near San Francisco and she was flying down for the weekend. Unfortunately, I was so sick I just couldn't bring myself to going through with the scene. I didn't want Beth to fly down and not be able to give her a great scene. So I cancelled. And I felt like shit for doing it, but when Saturday rolled around I realized I'd made the right decision. I was not well. Beth was disappointed but understood.

We planned on rescheduling for a few weeks later, and even up to a few days ago her schedule was such that we weren't sure we'd play. It wasn't until Friday (that's right, two days ago) that Beth was able to confirm. She flew down Saturday and we got together for dinner Saturday to catch up, talk about our pending scene and reconnect so we could get the best dynamic for our scene possible. It was a nice meal and it was great getting a chance to hang out with Beth. We both wondered what people thought about an attractive Asian girl in her 20s going to dinner with a dude in his late 40s. The couple sitting next to us at the restaurant certainly were intrigued.

We arrived at the Lair just as they opened, the ground still wet from a big winter storm, frost forming on car windows it was so damn cold. There weren't too many people there yet, and we wanted to get there early just so we could secure a spot in a warm, heated room rather than our last scene in the rain that took place in the drafty, concrete-floored garage. Happy we had our spot, it wasn't long before we got started.

Standing by the padded bench, I gave Beth a big hug to calm her down (she can get rather jittery before our scenes!) and before long, in our embrace, I had the back of her beautiful, amazing, tight, short black dress pulled up, spanking her bottom as I wrapped my arms around her. It was hot and rather unique (for me, anyway!). A few minutes later Beth was OTK on the bench, kicking and getting mouthy. Knowing she hadn't played since we were together in December I took time to warm her up. As I did, four or five spectators came in, having heard the sounds of smacking coming from the room we were in off the kitchen (and that was certainly the place to be--a refuge from the cold).

Beth has quite the mouth on her (I think she took tips from Erica!) and she's keen to throw out a few zingers while we play. One of the onlookers had to comment back, goading me into taking her bad mouth out on her.

The OTK consisted of a lot of hand, my leather paddle from London Tanner and my two favorite gloves--a super-thuddy work glove and my black leather biker glove with decorative tassels that work great for a bit of sensation play between whacks.

I started ramping up the spanking and Beth was kicking, squirming and gyrating, which I discovered I really love, getting into the physicality of the scene and having to tussle with her and restrain her while she fought. But eventually she rolled off my lap and we switched it up. Beth stood with her hands on the bench, bent over, and I continued spanking with my hand, using a variety of other implements, including my devilish dragon's tongue. Beth got rather quiet through this sequence. Either I wasn't hitting her hard enough or she had achieved a bit of subspace, I'm not sure. ;-) I did some sensation play, using vampire gloves, knives, wartenberg wheel and a new medieval spiked torture ball on her arm, back, legs and bottom. I also laid into her with a thick plastic cane that reminds me of a four foot long glue stick.

After about 30 minutes of this, I thought perhaps she was getting tired of the position, so I moved her to lay down on the bench. There, she goaded me again and I launched into a rather vicious barrage on her backside, using my carbon fiber cane and a long, snappy crop, amongst other things.

But the titular comment occurred after I had really gone rather berserk on her bottom, wailing away while she struggled, lashed out, kicked her feet (to the point her stiletto "stabbed" me in the arm) and generally tried to get away from my hand. She brattily commented, "You know, you could rub that out!" I paused and said, "I know!" and continued to smack her rear. She cried and wailed, so I felt like being a bit compassionate and started rubbing it out. "See? I rub it out!" I said as onlookers watched.

Beth stopped her kicking and struggling and said, "That's 'cause you're my bitch!" A few people watching made "Ooooh!" comments and they were right to, because I launched into an even more berserk attack on her, then after another 45 minutes or so, move into the "finale" phase of the scene: using a rather nasty crop with an arrowhead-shaped end, about a quarter of an inch thick of foam and rubber, truly a potentially scene-kill implement. I warned her and struck each cheek with the terrible thing. She cried, rubbed, moaned, begged for me to stop, but I whacked her a few more times for good measure, just to teach her a lesson about that damn mouth! ;-)

After a few more viscous whacks from that dastardly implement I rubbed and rubbed it out. Beth was rather beside herself at that point. Throughout the scene we took "Beth breaks", little timeouts where Beth could catch her breath and absorb the pain. She'd get up on her knees and wrap her arms around my neck and look me in the eye so we could just talk and connect. We did this again before going into the "final round."

My typical scene-ender is with a thick leather paddle, a paddle that Lizzie showed me the first time we met at our mutual first ShadowLane party. It's a good half-inch thick, made of layers of sandwiched leather so it both looks like plywood and is about as hard as plywood. Based on Lizzie's fantastic piece I had one custom made with one side smooth and one side stippled (textured). This is about the harshest thing I own and it was a traditional end to my scenes with Erica. She hated that damn thing, so I figured it's probably a good scene-ender in general. It has sort of become tradition for me, thanks to my many wonderful scenes with Ms. Scott.

So I pulled out the paddle, letting Beth know the scene was nearing conclusion. She begged me not to use it, but it was time. She'd been a bit mouthy with me over the least 2 1/2 months and I'd managed to total about 18 times she had been uppity with me. So the count was 18. She went back down onto the bench and we began. I really hit hard with the first two and I thought for a bit that Beth was truly done at that point, that we'd never get through the remaining 16. I rubbed them out and did four rather short and polite strikes. Beth even commented how nice I was, no the next few were hard, very hard. Beth rubbed her rear and I restrained her hands to keep her from hurting herself and smacked again and again.

Before long, we were done. Beth laid face down on the bench, panting, regaining herself, coming back and absorbing the pain. I held her, talked quietly to her and helped her come back to the surface.

Thank you Beth for a wonderful evening and an amazing scene. I love our energy, your mouth and our fun dynamic. We're both so not serious during the scene, enjoying every minute. You're a great play partner and I enjoy the opportunity every chance we get! Thank you, Beth!

Friday, February 25, 2011

The response was so lovely, so poetic, I had to share it with you all. Enjoy:

I’m not much into warm ups so the pain hits with a storm’s fury. I instantly find myself in the eye of emotional turbulence, thrashing vulnerability, the thud of the implement, a searing sting, and unabashed eroticism, which moves from my lower spine to the base of my head flooding my mind’s eye with undulating blackness. My pain rises and falls in unpredictable ways as the unseen hand keeps me at the brink of my limits, preventing me from total emotional disintegration into nothingness.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

“Game?” the Emperor muttered to The Chanter. The Chanter, so utterly not expecting such a thing to be muttered by this girl, hadn’t even processed the words.

“Uh…” The Chanter mumbled, attempting to stall for time. He collected himself and stepped forward from the shadows. “Your punishment is complete. Go!”

“Game,” she said, stamping her foot defiantly. At that, the glowing ropes let go, dropping to the pit floor and snaking away in retreat.

The Chanter motioned and the floor opened up behind Kim, a large padded bench—like an ornate ottoman—rising up behind her. The Persecutor came back and looked at Kim oddly. What was she up to?

“Game is on,” The Chanter said.

The Persecutor grabbed Kim by the wrist and dragged her over to the padded bench, pushing her gruffly toward it. She climbed atop it, knees on the lower portion and torso across the top. The Persecutor pulled from a box a thick paddle of metal, small extrusions—bas-relief divots—protruding from the smoothly polished surface. Intelligent cuffs found their way around Kim wrists on the far side of the bench and slowly squeezed until she was well restrained as another set wrapped themselves around her lower thighs. Kim shivered at this. There was always something oddly unsettling as the cuffs reached around and found purchase, something uncannily humanistic about the movement and sensation. The leg restraints suddenly tugged tighter, drawing her legs closer to the bench, removing the gap between her and the exotic padding.

The Chanter: “Round one!”

The Persecutor pulled back, swung, and struck Kim’s buttocks with a resounding crack! He pulled away, leaving a clean, read shape of the paddle—divots and all—imprinted in her backside as if he’d just spray painted them with a stencil. He swung again, connecting full force on her bottom. He did this again and again to the point some turned away, unable to watch. The Emperor leaned in, a glint in his eye.

The Persecutor put the paddle away and returned with a leather razor strop, the original function of the tool lost to antiquity. Again, he aimed, placing a hand on top of her buttocks along the tailbone and set to laying the strop almost exactly across the same spot as the paddle, creating a red stripe on top of the paddle’s harsh markings. Again, many blows later, he stopped and stepped back, Kim’s exposed flesh reddening in the dim light of the pit.

The Chanter stepped forward, looking at the marks more closely. “What is it?”

Monday, February 21, 2011

I'm working on a new chapter of "The Emperor's Concubine." I had great intentions of getting done over the weekend but I was distracted.

I was talking to Lizzie the other day and we got into a conversation about spanking and hand versus implements. She was talking about how much she loves the physical contact of the hand with someone she trusts and respects. She says it's more "old school". I'm not a spanko by birth so for me I just jumped into "traditional" spanking by doing rather by example. Coming from the BDSM world I also like my plethora of implements and try to use them in a way that facilitates an amazing experience for the person I'm playing with. Often, I fear, I lose sight of the importance of the OTK, hand and rather traditional elements so appealing to people hardwired for spanking. I'll start a scene by having the bottom standing and grabbing the edge of a bed rather than splayed across my lap. I'll move from warm-up to straps, paddles and other goodies quickly.

I've taught myself how to use my hands rather effectively (I hope!)--different techniques to deliver thud, sting, impact and more. I've "invented" my own devious counting methodologies, crazy spanking mind games and other methods for delivering pain with my hands. I'm not patting myself on the back, just mentioning what I've tried to accomplish.

I guess what I'm getting at is, as Lizzie pointed out, I need to focus on the basics and remind myself that in order to be a good top I need to get back to the best implement of all--my hands.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Saturday, February 12, 2011

I had been working on a piece of spanking fiction a while back for Jada and Lizzie and one of the characters in the story was called Janus. I just liked the spelling. I'd never seen it before and thought it was just different. Jada asked me where I got the name idea and I said it just came to me. She asked if I knew about Janus, the British spanking magazine, knowing I'm not (believe it or not) a *real* spanko. I told her I did not. She went on to explain Janus and the fact (I think) that it was one of the first spanking magazines with stories and pictorials going all the way back to the 1970s.

So last week, when I was back in London again on business, I was making my way through Soho to go a meeting at a nearby business, I literally stumbled upon the Janus store. I snapped a quick pic of this spanko institution to share with Jada back in the States. Pretty amazing happenstance...or was it?

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Kim was brought into the Emperor’s Visitation Chambers where she was pressed down to the floor onto her knees. Though she was not bound, she knew not to move. She saw in the circular lower pit in the center of the room a crying girl, similar in age to her own. This girl was sobbing in a heap of embroidered robes. Kim looked up and saw the Emperor sitting high in his gilded throne, a look of stern intensity on his face. Kim looked away quickly.

The Chanter said, “Remove her.”

A glowing cone of light came down from above and a moment later the girl and the robes were gone. Kim stared in disbelief. A nudge and a poke brought her to her feet again and she was pushed forward into the ring where she stood before the Emperor in her own robes, not entirely dissimilar to the previous girl’s.

The Chanter asked, “Behavior?” An older woman, the caretaker for the girls brought before the Emperor, came forward with a scroll and carefully found Kim’s name on the long list. Her voice, as dry as leaves: “Insolence to her keeper. Mistakes across multiple functions. Intentional lying and misleading.” The woman shuffled into the shadows.

The Chanter looked at Kim who stared at the floor of the ring. “Punishment or Game?” No one had told Kim what was going to happen. There were no rules, only stories and rumor. Kim had heard from another girl once that those who went before the Emperor were made to perform Sapphic rituals. Another girl in her advanced kinetics class had told of a girl who had been punished so badly when she returned she could barely move for two weeks and she was forced to endure her painful recovery staring at a portrait of the Emperor and made to count pixels. Kim didn’t know what to believe, but found herself in a moment in which she had no possible answer.

The Chanter asked again, more sternly, “Punishment or Game?” Kim was a strong girl, made obvious by being top of her class in advanced kinetics as well as body physics, but she was also a keen player of chess and knew strategy well enough to not pick something that she could not win. “Punishment?”

It came out more of a question than an answer.

The Chanter: “Punishment!” There was a murmur in the chamber from others hidden in shadow. From the sides of the room, two women came out wearing thigh-high boots and nothing more, dragging long glowing cord behind them in each hand. They both appeared quite strong. Kim couldn’t imagine anything that was described as “punishment” being also described as “Sapphic” but these relatively nude women suggested otherwise.

The women bound Kim’s wrists and ankles, far too easily and quickly. The glowing cords were made of intelligent material, so they wrapped themselves tightly around her appendages and fused together like a boa around tree branch. The women threw the other ends into the air and they sought a purchase in the ring, pulling taught so that Kim stood there, arms high and wide, legs spread. They were gone as quickly as they had entered.

Then he came in. The Persecutor. He was tall and thin, but with sinewy muscles like a bicycle rider or Aerial Messenger. He didn’t really look like a “persecutor” to Kim. He walked down into the ring and moved around Kim, looking her over slowly. He moved in closer, undoing her robe and letting it fall to the floor. Kim didn’t struggle or fight. This she knew would be a bad chess move. Avoiding the glowing cords the Persecutor ran his fingers across her from neck to ankle, as if inspecting livestock for purchase.

He extended his arm as if reaching for something then and from the bracelet around his wrist came an implement Kim had not seen before. It was soft, like leather, but coiled like one might roll a towel but with a handle on one end. He cracked this implement in the air and it made a sound like a whip. Kim shuddered and jumped. He walked behind her and let the material lick her naked flesh, slowly tasting her. She couldn’t see him but knew what was next: the Persecutor pulled back, swung long and wide and let the implement sear across her back and shoulders from left shoulder to right hip. The pain was excruciating. It burned and stung at the same moment, the surface feeling like she had been cut, but then the pain spreading wider and deeper across her musculature. He did this again and again, criss-crossing her back, moving down to her bottom then letting the lip slice at her hips, thighs and the back of each leg. Kim couldn’t tell if she was bleeding or not, though she did not feel any warmth of her blood dripping from anywhere the implement had touched.

The Persecutor came around and stood in front of Kim, scanning her again from head to toe with intent eyes. The Emperor leaned forward hungrily. Then the Persecutor did the same, lashing at her breasts, her belly, the fronts of each leg. The skin was not being cut. This implement just felt like it.

Her eyesight went white and at last he lashed again, wrapping the terrible thing around her neck and choking her until she couldn’t breathe, then going slack and releasing her. She cords went slack and she dropped to her knees. One of the women in boots threw Kim’s robe at her. Kim could her another girl being brought in behind the ring, much as she had done a few minutes earlier, the next girl to be punished in line for the pleasure of the Emperor.

The Chanter uttered, “Remove her!” but before she was taken, she found her strength, stood up, looking the Emperor in the eye and shouted, “Game!” She stomped her foot defiantly for good measure, the robe dropping to the floor with the movement, exposing her red welted flesh.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

On January 17 I posted a sort of "part 2" to my story from last year about a text meant for kinkster going to a co-worker. On that post I took a photo of Erica's bottom and in Photoshop put it on an iPhone screen. I'm a writer--that's one of the things I do for a living, so to me, words are everything (even though I can be rather sloppy with this very blog). Pictures, notsomuch. People like pictures. They speak a thousand words, I'm told. So when I was looking up my stats for my previous post on the subject, I was very surprised to see the number of hits that Jan. 17 post received. 578 in one day. That may not seem like a lot, but it's an all-time record for me for one day. Why is that? I think it's the photo.

So I'm going to do a test. I'm going to take some of Erica's spanking shots (with her prior permission, of course) and randomly pepper future posts with them--just to see if my traffic goes up. Why? I dunno. I would love to believe I'm witty, insightful, occasionally provocative--a raconteur. But if a picture is worth a thousand words--or 578 hits--perhaps I need to be writing more wittily, more insightfully, more provocatively...or at least 2,000 words.

Friday, February 4, 2011

I was looking through my stats today and I looked at something I rarely check: search words. The single biggest search term used to connect to my blog is "spanking in China." WTF??? I have some theories on this:

There are a lot of government officials over there deeply concerned about my blog entry from a year or so ago about the subject.

There are a lot of kinky Chinese*.

There are a lot of kinky people interested in spanking or seeing the spanking of a Chinese person.

* - NOTE: In reviewing stats on country of origin, there are ZERO HITS coming from China. Mind you, that's officially. Perhaps some of those hits that show up coming from Malta (Malta???) are redirects from a server in China. I dunno.

Maybe I should post some more on China and kink. That could raise the popularity of my blog...

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The title of today's blog post comes from a comment my play pal Beth made about my post on connections recently. She was saying that play is better when there's more to it than that--and friendship and relationships that form from getting to know someone in the scene makes the play even better. She said it's nice to know we're real people outside of our kink.

But her comment got me thinking. Isn't it nice to know that we're real people inside of our kink? I'm not bagging on what she said. I know what she meant and I'm not picking it apart. And I know she didn't mean that we're real people in spite of our kink.

But, what I've come to learn over the last few years of playing publicly and getting to know people in the scene is that more likely than not folks are genuinely nice in the lifestyle. There have been discussions ad-nauseum about this, but I think there's something to be said for us.

We all feel a little outside the mainstream because of our predilections. We either feel like we could be persecuted or have been persecuted for what we desire/want/need. I think that's why, when we get together as a group, there can be a lot more compassion between people than you typically see in the "outside world."

About Me

Motto: Conversio Virium (latin for "exchange of forces")
I am a MDHL (Male Dominant Het Leather) and am a proud member of the Monarchs. I am a Master and daddy to Lizzie.
I believe discipline, caring attention, focused instruction and mastery of myself and my sub are the first steps in a meaningful D/s relationship. I'm enjoy bondage, impact play, spanking, erotic humiliation, humiliation & debasing, and scenes mixing sex and delivery of pain. I feel true protocol comes from respect, trust, communication and understanding.
Because of my work and family I live the lifestyle 24/7 as best I can and am happy to have the balance I have.
I enjoy not just finding play partners but meeting new people, making new friends and appreciating the connections that come from that. The serendipity I discover in meeting great people in the scene has been a pleasant surprise.